


Bleed For You

by cerulean_sin (am_bellanoire)



Series: The Captain and Her First Mate (Huma One-Shots) [7]
Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: By Isle Standards, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Descendants 2, Self-Harm, Unconditional Love, Unconditional Loyalty, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:53:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21706276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/am_bellanoire/pseuds/cerulean_sin
Summary: “Let this be the last time,” she tried to order, tried to be stern about it. But the quiver in her voice couldn't be unheard and Harry seized the opening for what it was. He was a pirate after all.“Can't make any promises about that, captain.”“Harry.”“I am yer first mate,” he drawled resolutely through a smirk, “Just doing me duty.”
Relationships: Harry Hook/Uma
Series: The Captain and Her First Mate (Huma One-Shots) [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1471586
Comments: 15
Kudos: 90





	Bleed For You

_"Without you I feel worthless, I'm living on the edge...do everything that I can, to feel that touch from your hand...I can't think without you, my mind is always with you...you know you're everything I do, do what you want me to...get on my knees for you, what else is there to do..."_ \-- Jodeci

* * *

Harry's body was littered with scars. Such was the life of the pirate. There was no one on the crew left unscathed, no one who hadn't needed to be stitched up. Not even the wee ones. Once you pledged fealty to the captain of the Lost Revenge, you knew what you were getting into. You took up arms to defend what was now yours by default. You swore your oath in blood in exchange for protection, in exchange for turf, in exchange for finally _belonging_ to someone and something that wasn't going to let you go hungry or freeze to death out of spite. Take a licking and keep on kicking. Or however the hell the saying went. Isle life. It wasn't ideal, but it was _theirs_. Those fancy Auradonians with their rose scented farts had seen to that nice and proper, hadn't they? 

Harry's scars though, they ran far deeper. Of course he had taken his fair share of battle wounds. Being first mate, the first to join the crew and as such participating in more skirmishes than the others, that was only natural. Nothing worse than what he had experienced by his father's hand, strengthened by rum and his crazed obsessions with a flying boy who kept a pet fairy and a bloody clock ticking crocodile. Those scars, he wished he could erase, rub into oblivion. Sometimes. Other times they served as a reminder of what he refused to go back to. What he had managed to deflect from Harriet and CJ. With them now safe, or as safe as one could be on the Isle, and their sire left to rot aboard the ruins of the Jolly Roger – old, alone, and done for – his focus remained on his captain, his crew. 

A sharp hiss escaped his chapped lips as he splashed rum on the livid wound at his midsection. The bleeding had been staunched but it still oozed crimson. The gash ran from his left flank to his navel in a straight line. Easy to achieve with a hook, especially when one was as savvy with a hook as he. It didn't need to be stitched either, another kudo to his swordsmanship. 

The door to his cabin burst open but it wasn't enough to startle him. Besides, he knew that particular maelstrom almost as well as he knew himself. He didn't even glance up from where he was currently dabbing whale oil onto the now cleansed cut. Still, his heart rate doubled and the air in the small room seemed to diminish, but such was the effect when Uma was anywhere near him. 

“You hurt?” she asked, a demand more than a question. But that was the way she sounded when she was worried and trying not to sound worried. 

“Just a scratch,” he said in the same tone he would use to report back to her. What could she expect when he had watched her take a direct hit from a foe's blade. Why had she even come here looking for him? He had been the one to catch her when she'd stumbled, had seen the blood stain her leathers at her middle. Had felt the icy terror that flooded his veins at the venomous thought that the flame that lit her dark eyes would be forever be extinguished. For as much as he loved her, woshipped the ground she walked on, he couldn't look at her. 

Not now. 

“You only sleep here when you're hurt,” she volleyed back, ever stubborn. But he could hear the slight faltering in her voice. Chalk it up to him knowing her so damned long. She was in pain and trying her hardest to conceal it. The hitch in the breaths she took, the altered pitch in her words. He could hear it. He couldn't count to save his life but he could hear good and damned well. And it made him want to reach for his hook to slice another wound into his flesh, this time somewhere around where his heart was steadily thrumming. Because she was his heart. He'd still go on if the organ he'd been born with disintegrated. So long as _she _still breathed.__

__“I'm fine, captain,” he said, something hardened in his tone that he rarely exposed when addressing her, “Go back to yer quarters."_ _

__It went against pirate code to give an order to one's captain. He knew this because he had been raised by the captain of a pirate crew. She knew this because she was the captain of a pirate crew. But that did nothing to stay the words from his tongue._ _

__“You don't - “_ _

__Harry cut off her incensed growl with one of his own. “Tell me captain what to do. Yeah, I know.”_ _

__It wasn't often that he was so short with her. Hell, it was hardly ever. And he could tell that she was confused. Maybe not _confused_. Taken aback more like. And far more worried – and trying not to be worried – as she was when she first came up to him. She had undressed. Out of her pirate's garb now, wearing only a cotton shift. Her hair loosed from its braids. A waterfall of turquoise and teal spilling over her shoulders, framing her flawless mahogany face. If she was the last thing he ever saw before his eyes closed for the final time, he would meet his end contented. _ _

__“Lemme see,” she snapped harshly and he blinked, not realizing how quickly she'd crossed the distance between them._ _

__She stood over him where he lay sprawled in his hammock. Rarely lounged in because he spent so much of his time pillaging, fighting, or at the Chip Shoppe. Rarely slept in because he usually slept beside her._ _

__With fingers dripping thick oil, Harry finally looked up but didn't meet her gaze, the blue of his eye, he could feel bleeding to red. Something he inherited from his father. He could never hide his blood lust, never hide his emotions, especially not when it came to her._ _

__“I'll show ye mine if ye show me yers,” he said at last, averting his attention elsewhere once more. Because he still couldn't look at her now. Not fully._ _

__“Harry.”_ _

__He knew that tone. It was the same tone she gave orders in. The same tone she used to reel him in when he was fixing to gut someone or run them through. The tone she used to bring him to heel. But he wasn't going to be restrained. Not now. He glanced up at her again, this time meeting her dark gaze head on like he was steering a ship through a storm._ _

__“Uma.”_ _

__She foundered then. Blinking once and then twice. It was rare for him to call her by her name when she didn't ask him to. Usually she was his darling, his lass, his _captain_. But even in her...unsurety she drew nearer, close enough to touch. _ _

__“I thought you -- ,” the words seemed to die in her mouth and she shook her head as if to clear it before she coaxed herself to continue, “ I _said_ you don't gotta do this.”_ _

__Harry didn't have a response, because there wasn't one to give. Instead he lifted his hand, the one not coated in oil, and drew it down her cheek. The one with the scar on it. The same scar that mirrored the one he had on his right cheek. He let his hand trace the jagged scar on her collarbone. An identical mark to the one he bore on his collarbone. The rest of her body being covered by the shift, he lifted her left arm, the same one where last year saw the bone breaking through brown flesh after a nasty fight with a rival gang. It was healed now but still bore a raised scar. He hadn't gone so far as to break his own arm that night. He had seen and heard her pain, had been the one to reset and splint the dead limb, brushing away loathsome, briny tears from the corners of dark eyes with his lips. A one handed first mate was no good to a one handed captain. But his left arm bore a scar there too, regardless,_ _

__“Why?”_ _

__She sounded almost close to crying judging by the thickness in her husky tone. But he knew his captain. She was stronger than most gave her credit for. Mighty vessel that she was, it was only in his presence that she allowed her hull to breach. She only took on water when there was no other option but to do so. Her eyes were dry, but they leaked concern. Her hands fluttered like a pelican's wing over his wound. It was a weighted question she asked, heavy as an anchor, even if only for the one syllable._ _

__“If I lose ye, I lose me. I am nothing without ye.”_ _

__But still it was the easiest question he ever had to answer. Her eyes snapped to his, hardened like obsidian, her dark brow knitting. She wanted to be angry, he could tell that as well but she couldn't quite be._ _

__“Let this be the last time,” she tried to order, tried to be stern about it. But the quiver in her voice couldn't be unheard and Harry seized the opening for what it was. He was a pirate after all._ _

__“Can't make any promises about that, captain.”_ _

__“Harry.”_ _

__Of course she would try again and this time her voice is more sure of itself, shaken out of it's emotions. She sounded like the sea witch she is and he almost, _almost_ submitted. But the ache in his midsection, the softness of brown skin beneath his calloused fingers gave him strength. _ _

__“I am yer first mate,” he drawled resolutely through a smirk, “Just doing me duty.”_ _

__“But this ain't what - “ She tried to argue because it's ever in her nature. To argue, to dispute. To fight for what she believes is right. Unfortunately for her, Harry knew he was right in this regard. And two rights could never make a wrong._ _

__“This is me duty. When ye fall, I fall. When ye bleed, I bleed.”_ _

__Quiet overcame Uma for a long while at that. Because what was there to say? Her eyes narrowed though, losing their glassiness and her shoulders squared as she withdraw her hands, letting them rest upon her hips._ _

__“And if I - ?”_ _

__Even still she couldn't finish the question but that was fine because Harry could silently finish it for her. He knew where her thoughts had drifted then and though she hid it well, the fear, it was there. And for some sadistic reason that meant more to him than her verbally reciprocating his feelings. In her silence, he knew it was there. And that was enough. Enough to keep him at her side for always._ _

__“Then I'll breathe me last breath with a smile.”_ _

**Author's Note:**

> My mind is probably warped to shit, but I'm starting to realize I come from a different generation of fanfic writers lol. Some might find this story a bit dark, I guess, but me being me and understanding the type of place the Isle of the Lost REALLY is, from a very different standpoint than the way Disney tried to paint it -- I mean come the hell on -- this makes sense for them to me and in some odd way I find it...romantic? 
> 
> Whatever lol 
> 
> Thank you for reading as always , hope you enjoyed! Feedback would be greatly appreciated.


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